


Joke's on Me

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: House of Rogues [15]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gotham Season 1 (The Blind Fortune Teller), Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Nolan-inspired, Unorthodox medical practices, character evolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:51:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21551068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: “Lookin’ pretty serious there, pal.” It’s perfectly natural, after all, to have a casual chat with yourself in the mirror. It’s natural to do a lot of things when you’re shacked up in the nuthouse. “You should do something about that.”
Relationships: Iris (DeLaine) Zsasz (OFC) & Celeste Zsasz (OFC), Jerome Valeska & Iris (DeLaine) Zsasz (OFC), Jerome Valeska & Lila Valeska, Jim Gordon/Leslie Thompkins
Series: House of Rogues [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/646379
Kudos: 3





	Joke's on Me

_Twenty years ago: Hayley’s Circus, Gotham City_

She’s something straight out of dead poets’ imaginations and Gothic fantasy: tall, taller than any girl who calls this sorry sideshow ‘home’, with miles of white skin, a tumble of black hair, and blue eyes cut like a diamond. She’s dressed head-to-toe in black with the most delectable coil of red around her throat. She looks like sin, and the European accent catching at her words would make a saint pitch in the towel.

Jerome blinks, and refocuses. They’re asking about Mom. Dear old Mom. Dear old ‘ding, dong the Witch is dead’ Mom.

The man asking questions has ‘C-O-P’ written all over him, from the much-too serious crease in the eyebrows to the tight line of his jaw. This is a guy who needs to stop and smell the roses. Or at least get laid more often.

The ringmaster tells it how it is, that Mom’s a whore who would spread her legs for anyone and anything, but Jerome has a part to play in this opening act as the grieving son. He pokes enough holes to raise the cop’s eyebrow a little higher. He puts a little extra flavor in his concerned tone, talking about the hat and coat and purse which didn’t go out with Mom on her latest (and last) venture. More’s the pity that he had to bring them up; it means he can’t roast marshmallows over the smoldering remains.

No matter. He’ll find something else of hers to burn.

The cop has two ladies with him: one is about the same age as the cop and introduced as a doctor. They look like a married couple: one of those Jerome sees strolling through the circus grounds arm-in-arm and talking about everything that no one cares about. These two seem a little better, like they have their heads on right. He decides he likes them right away, so he makes the opening act a real good one. If he sells it all the way, these two will come back for more: his own private audience.

_The Mystery of the Murdered Whore_ : written by Jerome Valeska. Starring himself.

The second lady is the sinful delight of white-chocolate and black velvet trim. While the men talk about boring things, Jerome watches the other one in silent rapture. She’s about his age, probably IS his age, but she wasn’t born among performing animals and clowns stinking of grease paint over stale booze. This girl has ‘book smart’ on one sleeve and ‘stick your opinion where the sun doesn’t shine’ on the other. She shows off the first when she asks Jerome about Sheba’s speed, about how familiar the snake is with Mom’s scent. She flashes the second when the ringmaster says something stupid and she lets him know how stupid it really is.

The cop calls her ‘Iris’. It’s a bit flowery for Jerome’s taste, but it could be worse. God forbid her mother named her ‘Rose’ or ‘Violet’. Gag him with a pistol.

Turns out Hayley, blundering idiot he is, moved Mom from her original resting place in the field. In his brilliance, he put her in a cart and…what? Hoped no one would peek under the tarp or notice the smell when she turned ripe? Typical. So much for cremating her.

The doctor lady puts a gentle hand on Jerome’s shoulder as soon as he hits the ground with (if he does say so himself) a most impressive wail of despair. She offers equally gentle words of comfort and condolence. The cop is ripping old Hayley a new one. About time someone did.

Iris, on the other hand, gets right in the mix: she’s up on the cart, snapping on latex (hot DAMN, she keeps that stuff on hand?), and takes a close look at what’s left of Mom. She doesn’t hesitate or withdraw at what even Jerome will admit is a mess (he was in the moment…sue him for not being Picasso), but instead gets close and personal. This girl has been around death a few times. Maybe she even has the Grim Reaper over for tea.

_Opening Act complete. Curtain falls. Exit stage left._

***

Jerome can’t be sure if the cop sent pretty Iris in, or if she helped herself. Either way, he’s not complaining.

“Tell me about your mother, Jerome.” She sits with perfect posture, hands loosely folded on the table, and tips her head a smidge to the left. She’s curious about him. Might be the first one who ever has been.

“What can I say?” he shrugs; his nose is clogged from the crocodile tears, so he takes a minute with a tissue before continuing, “She’s my mother. She’s perfect.”

Iris lifts one of two shapely eyebrows, and Jerome picks up on her cue: this one isn’t like the other cops, the ones who patted him, ‘there, there,’ on the shoulder and got him a cup of water and brought in the tissues. She knows the score. He wonders if she knows the game.

“Not a very good cook.” He says with a weak smile, “But other than that.”

“Detective Gordon wants to know if she had any boyfriends who might have become an enemy.” Iris continues in that luscious tone, “But I am under the impression she was not the sort to have personal commitments. She just wanted to have sex.”

Jerome feels his head spin like a top. 

“Yeah.” He answers, because it sounds like a logical answer to give when there wasn’t a question. Also, he needs to put his mouth to some better use than salivating. It’s bad form.

“Level with me, Jerome,” he wonders if she ever raises her voice, or if it’s just infinitely calm, “your mother was not a particularly attractive woman. Her assets, in my personal opinion, were mediocre at best. And yet she had not one but two men – that we, at present, know of – so convinced she was going to bestow a happy ending upon their respective lives that they started a brawl over it in front of an audience. Would you mind elaborating?”

Would he ever.

“Mom…had this way with guys. All kinds.” He’s fighting a losing battle for the bereaved act (there’s only so much a guy can fake in one night) so he improvises with the tissues and a shy downward look, “Most were inside the circus, but once or twice she had a lover from outside. You know, a patron?” Iris nods; Jerome takes another pause to dab at his (dry) eyes, “I don’t know how. Seemed all she had to do was look at a guy, and he was on his back instead of her.”

He blinks, as though just realizing the possibility of saying something offensive, and looks up at her, “No offense.”

“None taken.” She waves a hand to emphasize the point; he’d love to know if anything actually offends her, or if she does all the offending, “Did your mother’s sexual escapades bother you?”

Only for about the first twelve years of life. “Not really.” He shakes his head, “I mean, without her sex life, I wouldn’t be here, right? It’s a natural, healthy, normal part of life.”

“Only to the extent that it does not become an active part of the child’s life, when the child is living with the mother in an eight by twelve trailer.”

There is no act of willpower that can keep him from responding to that little tidbit. Hopefully he still sells the show enough for her to come back for the next act.

“Well…yeah.” He clears his throat, sniffs a bit, and drops the tissue in the trash, “I mean, sometimes it got old, to hear her so close, doing…well, you know.” He shrugs again, “But eventually you just grow numb to it all, right? Just another part of life.”

Iris’ mouth thins into a cool smile. Jerome nearly swoons on the spot. “Of course. But whatever you grow numb to, it will inevitably evolve to a new degree, and one to which you are not accustomed.”

What she isn’t saying, and doesn’t need to say, involves buttons. Everyone has them. Every single one can be pushed. At one point or another, there comes along a button that just shouldn’t have been pushed. But someone will, at some point, push it.

He leaves the precinct a few hours later, still dabbing at his eyes with a tissue. As soon as he’s out the door, he pitches it over his shoulder and strolls down the sidewalk with a spring in his step.

_End Act 2. Exit stage left._

***

“Why did you kill your mother, Jerome?”

The setup is flawless. Jerome couldn’t have done better if he planned it himself. Which, of course, he did. The pretty doctor lady is standing behind Detective Uptight Gordon. The good detective himself is sitting across from a cheap metal table in this poorly-lit hole inside the precinct. It’s the middle of the night, but the old man sitting next to Jerome is as pristine as ever.

He wonders if the flair for fashion is what flipped Mom’s switch. There’s got to be something about the geezer that Jerome is missing. Otherwise, Mom really would just spread the yams for anyone.

Pretty Iris isn’t in the room. He wonders if she’s watching from the other side of the glass.

“Oh, you know how mothers are…” he waves a careless hand; there is no need for pretenses anymore, and he feels as free and naked as a jaybird, “She just kept _pushing_.”

His eyes slide briefly to the window; in case Iris is there, watching, he wants to give the best performance of his life. The best ones, after all, are the authentic ones.

“So,” he continues, “I’m like – fine, Mom. Be a whore. Be a drunken whore, even. But don’t be,” his tone drops, nearly a growl at the back of the throat, “a _nagging_ drunken whore.” He blinks, drops the growl, and smiles at Gordon, “You know?”

Gordon has a look on his face that would look smashing on a polaroid. Where’s a camera when you need one?

No matter: back to the show. A joke is only as good as the punch line.

“Don’t come yell at me to do the dishes,” the growl returns; in the moment, it’s as thrilling as when he said the same words to dear Mom, whether or not she could hear him over her own shrieking as the knife came down lickety-split, “if you’ve been _banging_ a clown in the _next room_!”

His hand strikes the table. Bang. Punch line delivered. Flawless form.

He’s still laughing when the white coats come an hour later.

***

_Sixteen years ago: Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane_

At first, the doctors don’t know what to do with him. He is shuffled in and out of therapy groups for months. Cognitive-Behavioral. Trauma-Based. Anti-Social Personality. One doctor, in what Jerome assumes is a fit of desperation, drops him in with the lot who were kicked around too many times by their mommies and never stopped looking for Mommy’s love in all the wrong places. He gets kicked out of that one for detailed comments on just where some of those guys could find Mom’s love. No one has a sense of humor in this place.

Therapy is a bust. Next round: medication.

The early stuff does nothing for him. Sure, it makes him a little sleepy and adds a pound or two around the middle, but that’s it. No results. One doctor ups the dosage. It gives Jerome a headache.

A new doctor starts after Jerome turns twenty-one. Meredith-someone, or someone-Meredith. Whatever. The guy is a quack, even by Arkham’s standards. He starts off with needles in Jerome’s eyes, then he moves on to either side of his head. The latter is accompanied by lightning in the sky for about three straight hours.

Jerome ends up in the infirmary after that mess. He wakes up feeling groggy, like he’ll never get enough sleep even when that’s all he does. And something is jacked up in his left eye. Takes a week for it to clear. By the time he’s dropped back in with the living, Meredith is gone and Jerome is on some other doctor’s shoulders. Good thing he’s never been one to get attached. He might start taking this personally.

Around the same time, he hears a rumor floating around about pretty Iris. Back from the dead, they say. Sweeping in and stirring the pot in the underworld, they say. Boring. Until word comes in that she’s booting Penguin out of his nest, moving in, and redecorating. That’s more interesting.

Two years later, it’s front-page news that Iris kicked out a rugrat of her own. Pretty little thing. Jerome cuts the article out – well, okay, just the picture of Iris and the kid – and tacks it up on his wall. He likes feasting his eyes on his pretty flower, who has certainly not lost a thing in almost five years, and the kid’s cute enough to glance at.

Good for her. Kid might have a chance with a mom like that.

The next day, his new medication starts and Jerome loses the next ten years of life to the black hole that is now his brain.

***

_Five years ago: Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane_

He can hear the doctors muttering but hasn’t the faintest clue about what they’re saying. Snippets pop out – ‘progress’, ‘improvement’, ‘regimen’, and so on – but drop against his ears like brick on concrete. To pass time, Jerome looks down at his hands. They’re both on his lap. The white-coats didn’t put him in a straitjacket this time. Yay for him.

He pokes one hand with the opposite finger; watches the way his skin indents and then pops back out. Interesting.

“Mr. Valeska?” the guy in the middle is a walrus in a cheap suit, “The board has made a decision.”

Congratulations, Board. Quite an accomplishment.

The word SANE is stamped across the papers handed to him by a guard: big red letters. Lovely shade of red, too.

SANE. He’s as Stupid as an Ass, but Not Evil.

They give him the stamped papers, forty bucks, and put him on a bus back to the city. He doesn’t have a stop, so he rides the pony until it won’t go anywhere else. He gets off, looks around at the rotting buildings, breathes in the stink of trash and piss, and decides this will do.

As long as Jerome can tell, no one has lived in these sorry dumps. The front door on this one wasn’t even locked. It doesn’t stop him from kicking the door in, just because he can. It makes a nice noise against the wall.

He finds a bathroom. The mirror is stained with who-knows-what, but the reflection doesn’t lie. Jerome is looking at a sad sack of nothing, and while the sorry ass looking back has his red hair and his eyes, it’s got nothing else. The skin is pasty white. The hair is a tangled mess hanging past the ears. The eyes are bloodshot, like someone just went on a bender with cheap booze and crack. Looks to be about fifteen pounds too heavy around the middle. The face is a flabby mess of skin on bone. The mouth is a slack-jawed gap that doesn’t move. Not an inch. Not even half an inch. Dull. Dead on arrival. DNR. Don’t bother trying again tomorrow – no one will be home.

“Looking pretty serious there, pal.” He addresses the mirror. It’s perfectly natural. Lots of things are perfectly natural when you’ve been shacked up in the nuthouse and the last decade of life isn’t even a blip on the radar. If it weren’t for the old walrus telling him, Jerome wouldn’t even remember his last name. Even with the guy telling him, it doesn’t sound right. Valeska? Didn’t that name belong to some dead whore?

He doesn’t like it. Doesn’t work for him. He’ll need to come up with something new.

Later.

“You,” he pokes a finger at the mirror’s chest, “should do something about that.”

The mirror nods. See? Perfectly natural. If he’s still making a lick of sense, there’s at least one light bulb still working in the attic.

His finger pulls back. Tucks into a fist. The fist goes into the mirror. Glass explodes everywhere. He has some vague recollection of something similar happening before. Except it wasn’t a hand. It was someone’s head. Did they die? Does it matter?

“So.” He picks up the biggest piece he can find; lets it sink into his palm for a minute or two. Marvels at how warm (and wet) blood feels. And red. Very red. Lovely shade of red.

The mirror is blown out, except for a small section on the left side. He can see the glass slip inside his mouth. It tastes like metal. Jerome decides it tastes better than the medication. He thinks of the pill bottles inside his bag. Those will have to go.

Later.

“Let’s put a smile back on that face.”

**Author's Note:**

> A couple obvious shout-outs at the conclusion of this piece:  
> 1\. Cameron Monaghan's performance as Jerome Valeska in Gotham. He's a scene stealer every time, but his introductory episode was pure gold.
> 
> 2\. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in Nolan's "The Dark Knight". Obvious inspiration in the final line for this piece, mostly because his performance was stellar and Cameron was definitely channeling a little Ledger in his own performance.
> 
> Please be kind with any criticism, and keep it constructive. I loved Jerome's character in Gotham and want to do him justice. Flames will be used to set a bus full of cheerleaders on fire.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. Still playing in the sandbox.


End file.
